An unusual painted wood floor that need unusual care

Have you ever had a vision of something so perfect and such a desire to achieve your goal you were not willing to compromise.

Well that is just what Luis Navaro did with their new restaurant on Petty Cury's Nanna Mexico.

The shop design and interior is amazing to say the least. If you haven't been, you have to make a trip down there – Oh yes and the food is amazing!

Well back to Luis’s dream...

This included a rustic floor – It's made of reclaimed, painted pine floorboards. Instead of sanding the boards down, the painted floorboards where left looking rustic.

This featured floor adds lots of character to the restaurant.


Well you probably ask “where do Art of Clean fit in?”

Here it is – Luis noticed the floor built up dirt very fast and it was growing increasingly difficult to keep it clean.

We were called in and the specification was simple – "We do not want to lose the character of the floor so please do not sand it." One of the other options was to apply a polyurethane finish over the top of the paint.

To achieve this, our biggest challenge was to ensure the new finish adhered to the painted wood surface.

Here is how we did it:

The floor was deep cleaned, dried and a coating of Pallmann 350 (this product enables an extremely strong adhesion between the paint and the coatings of lacquer that followed). This was then followed by 3 coats of Pallmann Lacquer.

Over the following 6 weeks we returned to inspect the floor several times and the new finish on the floor worked fantastically to keep the floor clean. We will be heading back soon for further testing and inspection before we apply the lacquer over the whole floor.

Art of Clean is a specialist cleaning firm in: 

Wood Floor Sanding,

Stone floor Cleaning,

Carpet Cleaning,

Rug Cleaning,

Upholstery Cleaning 

Leather Furniture Cleaning, 

Working for domestic or commercial clients throughout Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk and Hertfordshire.

For more information on our services contact our friendly team on 01223 863632 or email us at info@artofclean.co.uk

Wood floor sanding Norwich Cathedral

Get the most from your Commercial floor and floor sanding investment? PART 2

Following my blog post yesterday about the burned that can be caused by neglecting your commercial wood floor I would like to look at a way where you can ease the burden.

Once your commercial wood floor is sanded and restored this is the point where a good cleaning regime will be vital – Your cleaning team will need to be trained on the correct care for your wood floor. The correct cleaning products and care products should be used and readily available to you cleaning team.

Another place that needs regular attention will be entrance matting to your facility  - Once the barrier that keeps grit and soil out is filled up it start to track inside and wears floors out. Clean or change matting on a regular basis and ensure good vacuuming is carried out daily

Inspect your wood floor on a regular basis and carry out repairs when required.

Now 12 – 18 months if your floor starts to show light to medium wear this will be the point where you need to make contact with your floor sanding contractor and get plans in place for the wood floor in your commercial setting to be professionally cleaned and re-coated with high quality lacquer for commercial floors.

If you do not have a contractor you know and trust it will be important to ensure you choose a contractor that has a proven track record and here is why...

If a fresh coat of lacquer or varnish is applied on a floor that has not been fully sanded great care has to be taken to follow the correct procedures otherwise the newly applied lacquer finish on the wood floor will peel off the floor after a few weeks or months – if this happens the only solution will be to fully sand the floor back and re-finish it. Small one man floor sanding companies will unlikely have the financial backing to support a failure like this.

To re-coat a wood floor will be much cheaper and faster to be carried out – your wood floor can easily last 12 years or even much longer on a full sand and re-finish if a re-coat is carried out every 12 – 36 months.

Art of Clean is a specialist cleaning firm in: 

Wood Floor Sanding,

Stone floor Cleaning,

Carpet Cleaning,

Rug Cleaning,

Upholstery Cleaning 

Leather Furniture Cleaning, 

Working for domestic or commercial clients throughout Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk and Hertfordshire.

For more information on our services contact our friendly team on 01223 863632 or email us at info@artofclean.co.uk

Get the most from your Commercial floor and floor sanding investment? PART 1

You would have spent a lot of money getting your sports hall or commercial floor re-sanded – The floor is then coated and fresh lines / court markings is applied at great expense .

Your commercial floor looks really good and everyone enjoy using the floor.

This is where the floor can start burning a hole in your pocket if you do not care for your floor–
The finish on the floor slowly starts wearing away –

You might start to notice dull areas forming on the floor where areas gets used more often
- Especially sports courts will show where players of sport use the floor most
- Entrance doorways might start show traffic lanes

Nothing to worry about at this stage as the floor still looks great – after a deep clean it looks great

It is only 11 months in (or 18 months if the floor does not get too much use) that you start to notice a few damaged areas on the floor – at this point you might have to look to see them.

This is the point – your floor has started calling out for help …

Well as we know budgets are tight and the plan for the new roof or the new car-park gets the go ahead as the finance department can no see the need for spending money on a floor that do not look bad – in all fairness – to the untrained eye – the floor still looks good.

Here is where the smoulder turns into a flame inside your pocket

The lines you spent so much money on is by this point starting to be exposed and is some places.

At this point the water from the daily cleaning of the floor is now seeping into the wood floor

It will seem like only weeks later that someone starts to complain there are parts of the lines missing and badly worn away.

It is at this point that the hole burned in your pocket is now big enough to let you lose more money.

The new sport centre on the other side of town has a nicer court with clear lines – Bookings to your hall start to tail off as they prefer playing on better courts – This is costing you money every week as you lose bookings...

Where do you go now? Budgets are still tight and now you’re the establishment needs a new heating system and the electrics needs attention – not to even mention the fire alarm problems – The floor is the last thing on everyone’s mind.

It is only after a 2 hour long meeting that the finance department is convinced something has to be done about the floor.

The floor now needs a deep sand – losing about 3 – 6 mm of the floor meaning you lose a lot of the life to your floor – new lines has to be applied and this project will take 2 weeks.

Once quotes come in it makes the eyes of the finance department water though the reason for this is not clear to them. The floor requires deep sanding and full restoration.

What can be done to ease the burden on maintaining your wood floor ?

Read our bog tomorrow to find out more...

Art of Clean is a specialist cleaning firm in: 

Wood Floor Sanding,
Stone floor Cleaning,

Carpet Cleaning,

Rug Cleaning,

Upholstery Cleaning 

Leather Furniture Cleaning, 

Working for domestic or commercial clients throughout Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk and Hertfordshire.

For more information on our services contact our friendly team on 01223 863632 or email us at info@artofclean.co.uk

Wood sanding and oiling in Norwich Cathedral

Art of Clean and Affiliate to Ultimate floor sanindg recently had the pleasure to sand an re-finish the oak floor to the refectory at Norwitch cathedral

We have finished the floor a few years ago using Pallmann Magic oil.

The re-finishing of the floor was made much easier this time due to the fact that oil was used before.
We only had to lightly sand the floor to an even finish. To achieve that we sanded the floor with a 80 grit belt sanding machine and edger sanders

We then proceeded to sand the wood floor using a special multi head rotary sander to remove any small scratches

The floor was then re-oiled using Pallmann Magic Oil

Using oil also allow for a shorted application drying and curing times and this means the client can use the floor much sooner. When lacquer is used the floor require drying for a minimum of 8 hours and 14 days curing.

Here is a short time-lapse video showing the stages of the wood floor sanding at the Norwich Cathedral Refectory

Granwood Sports hall re-sealing and protecting

Granwood sports hall floors is a very resilient floor covering type and can still be found in many halls and sports facilities. Granwood floors is also a regular floor covering in schools.

Granwood floor sanding is a specialised service and contractors that take this work on have to have experience in the field. Granwood is made up of a mix of concrete and wood.

Downsides of refinishing or sanding a granwood floor can be very dusty due to the concrete present in the granwood blocks.

To control the dust during the sanding of granwood floors a dust extraction system is required.
It is advised to re-finish Granwood floors using Granguard Moisture cured Polly urethane.



This is an extremely odorous product. It is important to prepare neighboring buildings for a smelly environment. It is good to inform neighbors the floor swill be re-finished.

Once a granwood floor has been sanded and re-finished it is very strongly advised the floor should be cared for well and re-finished applying a fresh coat of Granguard every 12 – 24 months.

Would your granwood floors not be cared for here is the point where the Granguard will burn a hole in your pocket…

Here is a granwood floor we recently cleaned, Keyed back and re-coated using Granguard

Art of Clean is a specialist cleaning firm in: 

Wood Floor Sanding,
Stone floor Cleaning,

Carpet Cleaning,

Rug Cleaning,

Upholstery Cleaning 

Leather Furniture Cleaning, 

Working for domestic or commercial clients throughout Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk and Hertfordshire.

For more information on our services contact our friendly team on 01223 863632 or email us at info@artofclean.co.uk

What is hardwood and softwood?

Classifying wood as either a hardwood or softwood comes down to its physical structure and makeup, and so it is overly simple to think of hardwoods as being hard and durable compared to soft and workable softwoods. This happens to be generally true, but there are exceptions, such as in the cases of wood from yew trees — a softwood that is relatively hard — and wood from balsa trees — a hardwood that is softer than softwoods.

Hardwood comes from angiosperm — or flowering plants — such as oak, maple, or walnut, that are not monocots. Softwood comes from gymnosperm trees, usually evergreen conifers, like pine or spruce.

Comparison chart

	Hardwood	Softwood
Definition	Comes from angiosperm trees that are not monocots; trees are usually broad-leaved. Has vessel elements that transport water throughout the wood; under a microscope, these elements appear as pores.	Comes from gymnosperm trees which usually have needles and cones. Medullary rays and tracheids transport water and produce sap. When viewed under a microscope, softwoods have no visible pores because of tracheids.
Uses	hardwoods are more likely to be found in high-quality furniture, decks, flooring, and construction that needs to last.	About 80% of all timber comes from softwood. Softwoods have a wide range of applications and are found in building components (e.g., windows, doors), furniture, medium-density fiberboard (MDF), paper, Christmas trees, and much more.
Examples	Examples of hardwood trees include alder, balsa, beech, hickory, mahogany, maple, oak, teak, and walnut.	Examples of softwood trees are cedar, Douglas fir, juniper, pine, redwood, spruce, and yew.
Density	Most hardwoods have a higher density than most softwoods.	Most softwoods have a lower density than most hardwoods.
Cost	Hardwood is typically more expensive than softwood.	Softwood is typically less expensive compared to hardwood.
Growth	Hardwood has a slower growth rate.	Softwood has a faster rate of growth.
Shedding of leaves	Hardwoods shed their leaves over a period of time in autumn and winter.	Softwoods tend to keep their needles throughout the year.
Fire Resistance	More	Poor

Sourced from: http://www.diffen.com

Art of Clean are specialists in: 

Hardwood Floor Cleaning,
Stone floor Cleaning,

Carpet Cleaning,

Rug Cleaning,

Upholstery Cleaning 

Leather Furniture Cleaning, 

Working for domestic or commercial clients throughout Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk and Hertfordshire.

For more information on our services contact our friendly team on 01223 863632 or email us at info@artofclean.co.uk